Apple Digital Media Library?

Please don’t call it cloud...

I’m setting up new macs quite regularly and I’ve found over the years it’s gotten easier to switch from one work Mac to another. There was a time when I had a strict “main work machine”, a macbook, which would have all my latest data and apps I use with a fallback machine for testing, heavy duty compiling, etc. This was typically a desktop.

The idea was to be able to work everywhere using the laptop and switch to the desktop if required for stuff the laptop couldn’t handle well. Thanks to faster internet connections and better synchronization options I find that nowadays I regularly swap machines depending on wether I want the bigger screen of the desktop or the better mobility of the laptop. I have my source code in a subversion repository off-site, my contacts and calendars sync via mobile.me and my mail is hosted on an IMAP server. That covers pretty much everything I need for work. Except maybe for open source software, which I install on one machine and rsync to the other.

When I looked at this process I thought I might as well sync my iTunes and iPhoto Libraries with rsync to benefit from the bigger desktop screen and the speakers. And then I thought – why do I have to do this when my contacts, my calendars, and my mail are available on all my macs pretty much out of the box?

And isn’t it odd that we buy not only music but movies, TV shows, and now apps from the iTunes Music Store? When will Apple rename this to Apple Digital Media Store and consolidate our iTunes Music and iPhoto Library into a Digital Media Library, offering local network (maybe even remote network) synching?